Roger Federer says his children must learn to play tennis to avoid any “embarrassing” family outings.
The 20-time Grand Slam winner is arguably the greatest player of all time and he wants to make sure his two sets of twins at least pick up a racket recreationally.
“I have always wanted them to play tennis, it’s sort of the one thing the we require the kids to do,” Federer told American TV show NBC’s TODAY.
“All of our friends play tennis also and I don’t want my kids to be the only ones who don’t play any tennis, that would be too embarrassing for all of us.”
Federer has two 10-year-old girls, Myla and Charlene, and a pair of five-year-old boys, Leo and Lennart.
However, only one of the four offspring are really looking like following in their father’s footsteps.
“One of them (is showing tennis skills),” Federer added.
“The other three hmmm… One of them is on strike right now, he hasn’t played tennis in two months, he just doesn’t want to do it.
“The girls, they are starting to enjoy it more and more as we go along.”
Meanwhile, Federer also told an interesting tale about how he picked up a knee injury by running a bath for his young daughters.
“The story was crazy, I had just lost my semi-final match at the Australian Open and I woke up in the morning and I was tired because the pressure fell off and the match was over,” he said.
“My kids went to the pool in the morning and when they came back I was like ‘Ok, jump in the shower’.
“But they were ‘No we want a bath’, and I was like ‘No shower it is’.
“I was like ‘Ok bath it is’, I open the water and as I’m turning I hear the knee go click and I thought that was strange.
“When I go to the zoo with them in the afternoon I’m limping. I tore my meniscus and had to do surgery.”
